The Mourning Emporium (28 page)

“And me own dear childer?” Turtledove’s voice shook.

“Nearly all escaped,” Lussa answered, turning back to the shell.

“Nearly?” howled Turtledove. “Nearly, yew say?”

The shell showed the terrified faces of Greasy and Marg’rit as a circle of Ghost-Convicts closed in on them. This was a sight that deprived Turtledove of coherent speech. He choked and whimpered, turning around in circles in his distress.

Still speechless, he merely nodded when Lussa said, “So You see why You cannot return There. The Scilla awaits You, Comrades. Teodora, ’Tis for You to find and cast a Protective Spell upon the Vessel from Professor Marìn’s Book The Best Ways with Wayward Ghosts, to keep the Scilla hidden from Humanfolk & Spirits alike. And Spying Birds.”

Teo breathed, “The whole ship? The Scilla must be inaudible as well as invisible.”

“Can anyone smell you,” asked Tobias with interest, “between-the-Linings-loik?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Gardyloo!” cried Marsil. At that moment a swarm of rats rustled into the cavern and ran along the lower shelves. This had the London mermaids shrieking for their patented “verminicide,” ROUGH ON RATS, as they splashed out of the cavern.

“That’s terrible stuff!” exclaimed Turtledove, outraged. “I doan like rats any more than the next dog, but the trouble wiv ROUGH on Rats is how it makes ’em die so slow an’ cruel. I doan hold wiv it.”

Pucretia, the last to leave of the London mermaids, pushed an ovoid box of CHARLES FORDE’S BILE BEANS FOR BILIOUSNESS on the District Disgrace, who was still sobbing and clutching her stomach. The sight of Greasy and Marg’rit in peril, closely followed by the rats, had reduced the girl to a pitiable state.

Pucretia urged, “Bile Beans positively cure headache, constipation, despondency, fatty and waxy degeneration of the liver, debility, lack of ambition, buzzing in the head and stomach ailments.”

“Don’t do nuffink to save ye from Bajamonte Tiepolos, do it, though?” blustered Flos. “Ye know? Da kind what is intent on murdering Undrowned Childs and Studious Sons? And mermaids? And layin’ waste to whole cities? Thought not.”

Another heavy fog had descended on London while they’d been underground. Leaving the cavern, the Mansion Dolorous party caught a glimpse of two Ghost-Convicts trotting through the night mist. Deep in conversation, the ghosts did not notice the Londoners hiding behind a pilaster. Both had shark bites on their necks. One was missing his nose. An unpleasant bubbling noise issued from the blackened hole. He carried a billycan that sloshed with liquid. Both continuously brushed with their skeletal hands at the corks hanging from their hats.

The District Disgrace clung to Renzo’s hand with her grimy little fingers, and he clung right back. Turtledove growled, “I’ll smash the two of ’em in one.”

“Shhh. They mustn’t realize we know about them,” pleaded Teo. “And what about your childer? We’ve got to find them and take them to the Scilla.”

“Why do they keep thwiping their handths in front of their hats like that?” asked the District Disgrace.

“I guess they’re in the habit of brushing off flies,” said Teo.

The scene of destruction at the mourning emporium was worse even than the turtleshell had shown.

“My childer!” howled Turtledove. “They is all took!”

A muffled violin note sounded from inside one of the coffins.

“Fossy!” cried Teo. Turtledove rushed to nudge open all the wooden lids. The Mansion Dolorous boys and girls were still cowering inside. They had hidden there from the Ghost-Convicts, who had not thought to lift the lids, being much too busy raking through the stock for anything with a bit of glitter to it.

The shaking Londoners explained how only Greasy and Marg’rit, too slow to reach the coffin showroom themselves, had bravely led their pursuers away from their friends. They had paid a terrible price for their selflessness.

Ann Picklefinch whispered, “I peeped out from under my lid. Them ghoosties put our Greasy ’n’ our Marg’rit’s heads in sacks and tieded them up and carried ’em off, squealin’ loik little pigs. ’Twas verra bad.”

No one argued about leaving the Mansion Dolorous with all possible haste.

“Them ghoosties might coom back,” whimpered Rosibund. “They knows where we is, an’ might coom back at any time.”

The move to the Scilla was accomplished in less than an hour. After cleaning up as best they could, Renzo was set to writing an exquisitely regretful letter to Messrs. Tristesse and Ganorus, apologizing for their lack of attendance at funerals. Subtly, yet without actually writing any lies, he implied that a late-night raiding party from the rival Jay’s might be responsible for the damage, and for driving the boys and girls themselves into hiding.

Please do not give our coffins to other children, the note concluded, at Tig’s urging. We’ll be back in a few days. We promise.

“How we goin’ to git on board yon boot, then?” From behind a wall, Ann looked fearfully at the two sleepy officers slumped on a bench in front of the Scilla.

“The Incogniti are here to help us,” said Renzo, waving at Uncle Tommaso and a handful of pumpkin-sellers standing with their braziers in Clink Street.

Uncle Tommaso winked, shouting, “Free hot zooky! Late-night special!”

The guards roused themselves and sauntered toward the trays of glowing orange pumpkin. The boys and girls slipped up the Scilla’s ladder undetected.

From the depths of Signor Alicamoussa’s hay-scented hug, Teo noticed that Fabrizio cast a rather interested eye on the District Disgrace and that Sebastiano seemed to find a soul mate in Bits Piecer. It was good to be aboard the Scilla again, to feel wood beneath her feet and to smell the salt of the not-too-distant sea.

Turtledove eyed Sibella, daintily dressed in a white musquash cape with a fox boa and sable muff. “This is the Sibellant siren? Wot the mermaids warned us to keep an eye on? I see there ain’t no bamboozable he-person can be safe when this female puts her ‘come hithers’ upon ’im. Look how she snicker-snackers them eyelashes! Can see why yew’s a bit spoony on her, lad.” He grinned at Renzo, who turned into a boy-shaped fire-hydrant.

“Ah,” remarked Sibella with a smirk, “an English bulldog. A dog of breeding is not absolutely detestable.”

Turtledove growled low in his throat, unable to decipher the traces of a faint compliment inside the overwhelming impression of insult. He remarked to Renzo, “Doan know why yew wants to get all snoodled up to that. I’s not one to cast asparagus, but I’d say she ain’t a truster. Yew got the smarts, son, yet I think she’s one too many for yew.”

Then he leaned in closer to Sibella. “Them ain’t dogskin gloves yer a-wearin’, girlie?”

She drawled, “Finest Parisian poodleskin, I believe.”

“Speed the wombats!” Signor Alicamoussa was startled into saying. “That blondie girlie reminds me of someone, but feather me if I can remember who.”

“Poodleskin!” howled Turtledove. “This miss has the heart of a vulture!”

“Reckon that is the kind that most makes a hash of young men’s bosoms,” observed Signor Alicamoussa.

There was also some accommodation to be made between Turtledove and Sofonisba, both of whom slightly lost their heads on introduction, to the extent that Sofonisba finished halfway up a repaired mast, spitting like a fishwife, and Turtledove split his black velvet waistcoat jumping after her.

The boys and girls watched in silence as the cat and dog suddenly realized the indignity of their situation.

Cool apologies were exchanged, and Turtledove bowed low. “Charmed, I’m sure.”

If a cat could give a weasel’s smile, Sofonisba gave one now, mewing, “Certainly you are.”

“Yew know wot dogs is. Hot-heads. I blame me edikation. They allus taught us that any cat would murder yew for a fish supper.”

Sofonisba conceded graciously, “I myself have known several cats who would do just that.”

Tig took one look at Sofonisba and pronounced her “the most helegant creetur alive!” Thereafter Sofonisba would make a point of sleeping on Tig’s hammock.

The others shyly introduced themselves. The Venetian boys’ English proved adequate to express themselves, but not quite good enough to understand the varied street dialects of the Londoners. Teo and Renzo found themselves busy with simultaneous translations.

Sebastiano asked, “So are you two Londoners now, then?”

The awkward silence was broken by the bells of St. Mary Overie tolling ten o’clock. Then Teo was struck by inspiration: “How about some games?”

“At this hour?” Renzo asked.

“It’ll warm us up quicker than anything. And it’ll help everyone learn the words they need to get on! Pylorus, what do London children play in the street?”

The Londoner opted for My Lady’s Coach, Knock Down Ginger and Aunt Margaret’s Dead. Then the Venetians successfully conveyed the complicated rules to their Strega, Bandiera and Campanon, a special Venetian form of hopscotch.

Turtledove beamed approvingly. “Childer. Playin’ games. Like they oughter. It chokes me up, that. Bring me a hangkerchief, Tig, do.”

Not everyone was playing games. While the others laughed themselves breathless on the frozen deck, Teo was sitting cross-legged by the booby hatch, scanning The Best Ways with Wayward Ghosts, stored in her photographic memory, to find a spell that would protect the Scilla from her enemies, both natural and supernatural. From time to time, she looked up wistfully at the exuberant merriment on deck. She’d have loved to warm her toes with a quick hop at Campanon. But each time, she turned dutifully back to Best Ways, desperately seeking a solution.

“How ith you gonna make the whole ship invithible ’n’ unhearable, Teo?” asked the District Disgrace, who had crept over to sit beside her.

“Shhh. Teo’s reading,” Renzo admonished, skidding to where they sat. This talent of Teo’s, which he envied so much, required quiet. Teo mentally leafed through pages 150 to 280 in a few minutes, finding nothing of use except a spell for making a Ghost-Convict dance a hornpipe.

At last, on page 449, Teo found a spell that might work.

At that moment, from the crow’s nest, Marco shouted, “Ghost-Convicts, six of them, marching down Clink Street. Right toward us. And cormorants, approaching from the Tower!”

Renzo cried, “Teo, you’ve got to do it. Now!”

Teo closed her eyes and recited the spell. At first nothing happened. Then a strange silence fell over the boat, as if the air was thick with chloroform. The Scilla shook like a wet cat and began to spin in circles, wrenching her ropes from their bitts. The narrow berth of St. Mary Overie Dock had snugly contained the Scilla’s dimensions when she was at rest. But now, at each lurching turn, the sides of the boat juddered noiselessly against the stone walls. Pewter mugs and coiled ropes were raining down soundlessly on everyone’s heads. Teo was winded by a barrel that flew across the deck to smack her in the small of the back. Waves broke over the Scilla’s bows, sending jets of water high into the air. The cormorants, just arriving at the dock, departed in a flurry of feathers and squawks. But aboard the Scilla herself, everything remained as silent as the grave.

All the while they tumbled around, Teo kept her mind’s eye firmly fixed on The Best Ways with Wayward Ghosts. On page 450, a paragraph flashed in front of her:

“If this spell causes your accommodation to lurch or otherwise comport itself alarmingly, it is sometimes efficacious to invoke a list of Calming Visions.”

Teo thought: “The Venetian lagoon at sunset, the sound of pages turning in old books, Renzo singing …”

The tumbling ceased abruptly. Everyone fell down, and everything fell down on top of them. When the silent shattering of jam jars had ceased, everyone sat motionless and fearful.

Down below in Clink Street, the six Ghost-Convicts arrived at the dock, staring in all directions and sniffing suspiciously. They paused every few doors to anoint the handles with liquid from their billycans.

“Can you smell kiddies?” asked one, sniffing.

“Not a whiff, dammit,” growled the other.

“It works!” exulted Teo. “They can’t even smell us. And look, the cormorants haven’t come back!”

Signor Alicamoussa pointed. “And all accomplished in silence! Those worm-brained guards haven’t noticed a thing!”

“We’ll have to stop St. Mary Overie’s dock-keeper renting out the space to someone else. Or another ship will come and crush the Scilla to matchwood,” Giovanni pointed out.

Renzo suggested, “We can say that we had to make a short voyage, but that we’ll pay to keep the space reserved for the Scilla when she comes back.”

“I’ll go and find the dock-keeper,” said Emilio. “He’s usually at the Anchor at this hour.”

Fossy played an anxious note. Tig interpreted, “How will you get past the guards?”

“Watch me!” Emilio said with a grin, climbing down the ladder.

“Where did you appear from, laddie?” shouted a surprised officer when Emilio materialized beside him. For the moment the boy let go of the Scilla’s ladder, he had become visible once more.

“Now doan you even think of going aboard this here Venetian ship, laddie.”

“What Venetian ship?” asked Emilio innocently.

The guard spun around to discover that he was guarding what appeared to be an empty dock.

“Well, I’ll be boiled! Slipped off, has she? Well, all to the good.”

He began to remove the tape and the quarantine signs.

Turtledove busied himself inspecting the quarters for his “childer,” testing the hammocks for softness and diagnosing a need for cotton-flannel blankets and black bear stoles all round. “I’ll nip back to the Mansion Dolorous termorrow an’ see what I can rustle up from last season’s stock,” he said. “Meanwhile, all this adventurizing and magicking has given me a powerful appetite. Seems like three days, not three hours, since we ’ad those fish ’n’ chips! Anythin’ by way of gnawing round here?”

“Reckon every echidna must have his ant, yes,” Signor Alicamoussa agreed, rather impenetrably. “Second suppers all round!”

The smell of roasting meat soon floated out of the galley, along with the cheerful sound of Cookie whistling. His sea pie was an immediate success with Turtledove and the Londoners. Under its crust were layered mutton, onion, mealy potato and a fragrant gravy. Teo and Signor Alicamoussa, who pronounced himself “fanging for a feed,” dined on Stilton-and-apple turnovers.